by Bhaskar Chakravorti, Senior Assoc. Dean of International Business & Finance, The Fletcher School at Tufts University, Founding Exec. Director, Institute for Business in the Global Context

Commenting on the state of innovativeness, Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and legendary Silicon Valley investor, remarked, "We asked for flying cars. Instead, we got a hundred and forty characters."Really, Peter? Who asked for flying cars?Silicon Valley is, of course, obsessed with cars of many kinds -- self-driven, electric, enabled by commands and software downloads from a mobile phone. The urge to be airborne has been channeled primarily into recreational UAVs, or drones, thankfully. Given that so much of Silicon Valley travels in company buses (arguably, a more efficient and greener mode of transport than any of these alternatives) I am a bit alarmed at the prospect of a proliferation of new car options, of either the self-driven or the flying kind. Is there an urgent need for either?